


live on as if you still love me

by mcmeekin



Category: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Power Rangers, Power Rangers Zeo
Genre: (kat and kim don't die), Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, RPM!Verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-16 04:40:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13628766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcmeekin/pseuds/mcmeekin
Summary: Kim and Kat on the other side of the apocalypse





	live on as if you still love me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hearden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearden/gifts).



> to be fair to myself i tried really hard to do a different prompt but then i was like 'i can't live a lie...rpm verse all the way'
> 
> i didn't want this to be the most depressing shit ever so if ur like "this is a dramatic mood shift" it's bc i wanted happiness at the end
> 
> warning: mentions...all the other rangers dying? yay
> 
> title from 'even if it's a lie' by matt maltese

Kim and Kat are acutely aware that they are the only two that survived Venjix from the original Zordon teams. Acutely, acutely aware.

The pain is a dull ache nowadays: ever present but easily ignored with practice. Practice makes perfect, but it’s a skill Kim never wanted to have to learn. How to fake a smile until you believe it. How to stop remembering someone without forgetting them. How to tell yourself you’re fine until you forget what the means anymore. How to love someone even though you hate yourself.

She remembers sitting next to Kat in front of a hastily built fire out in the wasteland of a town that might have once been somewhere in Mississippi, huddled up against her when Kat told her that she knew the others were all dead.

“At least all of Zeo,” she said, numbly. “I felt the crystals die. One by one.”

Kim knew ( _she’d been there for some of them she’d seen it she’d lived it she can’t get it out of her goddamn head_ ), but she didn’t _feel_ anything.

“What did…it feel like?”

“Like somebody put a knife in my heart. Like somebody tugging on the knife every time I remember.” She says it almost clinically. Removed. Detached.

“I didn’t feel it when… I didn’t feel it.” Kim still can’t bear to say it.

Kat shrugs. “Zeo was originally one crystal, all split up. Your powers were always separate. Maybe that’s why.”

Kim gestures between the two of them. “We shared a power. Do you think I would feel it if…” She might be a coward for trailing off, but there’s no one around to accuse her of being brave in the first place.

Kat’s eyes find their way to Kim’s, and she absently brushes a scratch on Kim’s cheek, wiping phantom blood off (Kim knows the blood has long dried; it dried sometime after she watched Aisha die). “Yeah. Yeah, I think you would feel it. But let’s hope we never have to test the theory.”

That was long before Kim ever kissed her. She regrets that sometimes, when she forgets to not-remember times before Venjix. She wishes she had been paying enough attention to her own emotions to know that the sparks flying between her palms and Kat’s when they held the same power coin were more than one type of magic.

But she supposes that it’s okay. At least they have now. The only good thing to come out of the end of the goddamn world, or whatever.

She’ll sometimes see (on street corners, park benches, back alleys) couples tangled up in one another, kissing hard enough to bruise. Kissing like the world could end at any moment.

_Stupid_ , Kim will think. _The world’s already ended. You’re late to the party._

And anyway, she can’t imagine Kat kissing her like that. Can’t imagine kissing Kat like that. Can’t imagine not treating their relationship like a box labeled “handle with care.”

It’s hard to be in love with someone who was there for half your friends’ deaths. Even harder when you saw half their friends die, too.

Kat never plays the blame game with Kim, so Kim extends her the same courtesy. They just hold each other through the nightmares and breakdowns and birthdays and anniversaries. They try to keep memories alive that aren’t painful (which is almost none of them) and talk through memories that are suffocating (which is almost all of them).

They’re coping. It’s a process. Better as two than as one and one. They’re trying. That’s all they can ask of each other.

 

It takes months and months and months, but Kat is the first one who’s able to buy Adam’s favorite food at the store without feeling faint. Kim claims the title for the first to be able to watch Aisha’s favorite TV show reruns without having to turn it off halfway through. Kat puts on the necklace Tanya gave her for her birthday and doesn’t try to claw it off. Kim pulls out a high school year book, and Kat tells her that she wins a kiss for the night.

(“Wouldn’t you give me one anyway?”

“Yes, but it would have been empty and undeserved. This one will be better.”

Kim rolls her eyes at the mirth sparkling in Kat’s, but she thinks the kiss does feel better, somehow.)

~~~

It’s raining by the time Kim gets home.

She sighs, holding the bags in her hand closer to her to avoid getting them wet as she fumbles through her keyring to find the one that will let her inside the apartment building. She’s wet from her walk from the bus stop, tired from her day at work, frustrated from the news she saw in the store, and grumpy because of course her girlfriend is going to gloat over the fact that—

“I told you they scheduled rain for this afternoon.” Kat’s umbrella appears very suddenly over Kim’s head, and the rain relents. Kim sighs again as Kat slides her key into the door.

“I was asleep when you told me that.” Kim doesn’t spare a glance over her shoulder for Kat as she steps inside and begins climbing the stairs.

“Then how do you know I even told you, if you were asleep?” Kat sounds especially smug, so Kim pointedly ignores her. “I see you even remembered the groceries I asked you to pick up while you were ‘asleep.’”

“You left the grocery list out on the counter very passive aggressively,” Kim can’t help but argue.

Kat’s laugh bounces down the hallway of their apartment building as she finally overtakes Kim in order to unlock the door to their unit. “I wouldn’t have asked you to if I knew you were going to be this grumpy about it.”

The lights flicker on automatically, and there’s a distant meow from their cat (probably curled up on the bed, where she’s not allowed to be). Kim unceremoniously dumps the bags onto their kitchen counter and huffs, “I’m not grumpy about the groceries.”

“Of course you’re not,” Kat says, placating, setting down her umbrella and shaking her hair out of its bun. “You’re grumpy because you had to see the news while you were in the grocery store.”

Kim frowns, focusing on unloading the first bag. “No I’m not.” Petulant.

Kat laughs, scrunching her nose up. “You’re adorable when you’re pretending like you don’t feel protective over them.”

“I am not,” Kim whines, hiding behind a can of soup.

Kat plucks the soup out of her hands and places a kiss on her wrist in its stead. “It’s okay. I get all mama bear when I see the stupid criticisms too.”

Kim deflates, sinking down onto a stool at their counter. “They’re doing their best.” Her quiet defense falls on the choirs’ ears instead of the congregations’, she supposes. She doesn’t need to tell Kat that the power rangers are doing surprising well at defending Earth’s last city, considering the circumstances. Just under half of Corinth doesn’t agree, hence the news segments run nearly constantly on property damage, injuries, what they could be doing better, blah blah blah. Kim just wants to tell them to do it their damn selves if they think they know so much about saving the world.

“They’re just kids, anyway. We did a pretty awful job back in the day, and we didn’t get half the flack they do,” Kat says conversationally as she stacks eggs in the fridge. “They have their own damn television channel! We could barely bust headlines for being shit at our jobs.”

“We weren’t that bad,” Kim grumbles. Kat levels at look at her. “What! I mean your zord driving left something to be desired but—”

“I will throw this at you,” Kat says calmly, armed with an avocado retrieved from the groceries.

“You wouldn’t! You love me!” Kim cries, even as she’s getting up from the stool for a hasty retreat. Kat chases after her (of course) until she catches her (of course) and tickles her into admitting defeat (of course). The cat is very affronted to be uprooted from her nap spot (that she’s not supposed to be napping in) but is appeased with food quickly. Kim cooks dinner while Kat does laundry and tells her about her day at the ballet studio. They watch a movie and accidentally fall asleep curled up together on the couch.

It’s a perfectly average afternoon, post-apocalypse. It’s trying to be normal. The power rangers are trying. The city is trying. Kim and Kat are trying.

(And that’s all they can ask of each other.)

**Author's Note:**

> hmu on twitter @ katmanxs or on tumblr @ powerprincesses or right here in the comments (god invented comments for u to use them pls do as he wills)


End file.
